Hello all,
I will be getting my medical card in soon and I am excited being able to smoke and grow without being considered a criminal. I have always wanted to grow, but the fear of incarceration always got the best of me, lol. Now that medical is legal in my state I will be able to have 6 seedlings and 6 mature plants at any given time. I have been doing a little research and I am going to do a small seedling/ clone area and a separate flowering area for a little perpetual setup. I plan to build a specific room for this rather than a tent. I am trying to figure out the best place to put it. I have a metal uninsulated shop building and would really rather have the grow room in the shop, but I am concerned about temps and humidity in the uninsulated building. I know I can insulate the room, but I don’t want to be constantly fighting the temps and having to run a/c and heat constantly just for the grow. Another option would be build the room in my garage which is attached to house. It is not be heated and cooled either but would be insulated and is attached to house, so not as extreme temps but would still require some level of HVAC. I could build the room in normal living area of house with hvac I guess, but I(wife) would much prefer garage or shop areas due to smell, cleanliness, etc. I would like to hear thoughts of those with experience on maintaining temps, I honestly dont know how hard it would be to heat/cool. I maybe overthinking this, just want to do it right the first time. I live in area with 100+ temps in summer and freezing temps in winter. I am thinking a room maybe 8’ deep and 12’ long and then a wall separating into an 8x8 flowering and 4x8 seedling rooms. I think I will just flower a 4x4 canopy area and that would leave 2’ all the way around to walk and for extra room, this maybe overkill, maybe I should just do a 4x4 flowering room and no walking room around the perimeter? I am about to build a new house, so my options are pretty open. Sorry for the long rambling post, but please give some feedback with how you guys with experience would do it, if you were in my shoes.
Insulate, ventilate as much as you reasonably can and be sure you can maintain reasonable temps and humidity levels. Good genetics and a basic grow set up and you will be makin your own meds in jig time.
I wish I had been in your position when I started. I live in same temps and I put the tent in the basement. I was afraid of cold and ended up with too hot even in winner from lights. I do have to use air in the summer but I had a duct going to it and just had to cut and add cover.
How much do you consume per month? Unless you are a very very heavy user, you can grow more than enough for personal use if you only grow during the colder months. Its much easier/cheaper to heat a well insulated space than to cool one with AC. I grow in a 7.3 sq ft tent and Ive been averaging right at 1 pound dry per harvest. One pound lasts me a long time.
As G-paS said earlier, you probably wont need any extra heat when the lights are on, even in cold weather, and a well insulated space can get by with a very small heater when lights are off.
Having room to walk all the way around a grow space is very helpful. It helps a lot to be able to reach all the plants easily for pruning, training, checking, watering, etc.
Are you going to do soil? Sea of Green or SCROG or? Lights? Nutes?
OK grower here as well… my main issue was with the humidity in the summer. I currently have my tent indoors and it’s running fine, had a space in the garage, and without insulation the heat and humidity were just causing way too many issues. Smell shouldn’t be that big of a problem with a carbon filter system in place. You will need ventilation, usually on 24/7, can be a noise issue without rubber bumpers, etc… If you need heat during the winter, you can run an HID lighting like HPS/MH during winter, and then run LED during summer for less heat output.
I dont have a design, yet. I am just trying to figure out how big it needed to be and where I am going to put it. I will have a partner on this and will need no more than 2 oz a month. I think I am thinking too big. That is a good idea about not growing in summer. If I could yield .5-1 lb per harvest, I could just do 2-3 grows fall thru spring and that should be plenty. I am thinking coco in smart pots with solstix LEDs, scrog. Would I be able to yield that in a 3x3 area with a setup like this? I am thinking of building in attached garage adjacent to living area, I will have RO system in house to use and I could pull my fresh air from inside house and vent out the soffit. Maybe 3x3 flower area and an adjacent room 3x6 or so for clone/seedling and storing supplies, reservoir, etc.
If you’re thinking of doing a few bigger harvests a year I’d recommend a 1000W HPS. It’ll make lots of heat for your lower temps, and you’ll be able to easily pull a pound from it even as a rookie. A 4x4 space is great for a 1000 watter.
Yeah, I only do three grows a year because its too hot in summer for me to control hi temps easily. My tent is 28" x 38" x 50" inside dimensions, and I use a 320 watt SolStrip light to get my one pound yields, so 3x3 is more than big enough to get you what you want.
First grow was in soil with fem seeds - 2ea Northern Lights, and 2ea CBD Critical. Dry weight was just over 15 oz. Second grow was in hydro. I actually did three different types of hydro in that small tent at the same time. All three plants were Blue Dream clones. Just under 20 oz total.
A couple of things to keep in mind when comparing my numbers: LED watts are more efficient that HID, HPS etc. So my 320 watts of LED is more or less equivalent to 500-600 watts of any other type. Also, Im including popcorn buds in that total that some people toss out. I dont smoke. I make RSO into capsules, so I keep everything that has frost if its dime sized or larger. Thats probably only an ounce or two of the total though.
Finally, I love SCROG. I can really fill up that small space with colas.
